American Cars Are Getting Too Big for Parking Spaces
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vice.com
If vehicles keep increasing in size to the point that they become less convenient then that provides a disincentive to purchase large vehicles.
Similarly, if a thoroughfare becomes less efficient because too many vehicles start using it then that provides an incentive for people to consider other means of getting around.
No street parking where you live? Fine, you can park some distance away, sell your vehicle, move somewhere that does have it, or provide your own off street parking.
I've experienced a lot of crosswalks, sidewalks, bike lanes, and car lanes that enormous vehicles have blocked because they don't fit in a normal parking space. It creates dangerous situations very easily. And with the poor daylighting (cross-traffic visibility at intersections) in US cities, these giant vehicles make it even harder to drive, walk, or bike across town because parked or stopped vehicles completely block your view of traffic.
Growing car sizes is a failure of government safety regulation, and unfortunately I don't see much benefit for society from it.
Unfortunately I have no faith in this. Builders will keep building bigger. Companies will re-paint existing lots.
Without laws (that get enforced) to limit the size of the spaces, the cars, or both things will get worse.
And tow them.
It will drive demand down.
I’m both one of “those people” and I lived in the idyllic burbs until last year. I saw the attitude all of the time.
No mention of the CAFE standards that favor larger vehicles by imposing less stringent efficiency goals on large footprints? They were predicted [1] to cause an increase in vehicle size, and it happened.
[1]: https://me.engin.umich.edu/news-events/news/cafe-standards-c...
the 85th percentile method is not capturing the changes
in the car sizes. The size of the 10th percentile car
has exploded. The size of the 50th percentile car has
grown tremendously. The size of the 70th percentile car
has also grown. But the 85th percentile car is essentially
the Ford F-150, which is much taller and longer than it
used to be, but no wider.
In 1987, Scheeman says, the design vehicle used for
parking space standards was three inches narrower than
it is today. But, that same year, the best-selling car
in the U.S., the Ford Escort, was a whopping 13 inches
narrower than the best-selling car in 2022, the Ford F-150.
I yearn for the days when I owned a real Mini: https://i.etsystatic.com/19141424/r/il/d27dc6/2416723291/il_...
For many decades, I used to throw shit at urban drivers of monstrosities like SUVs. Serves me right, that we were forced to get an SUV so we could put my wife's mobility-scooter in the cargo area. My personal preference is for small, nippy cars with tiny turning-circles that can fit in anywhere.
Turning circle and length is why I decide against them.
"Hearse": https://carsales.pxcrush.net/carsales//cars/dealer/7vqz79av2...
Environmentalists can protest all they want but people, particularly outside of cities, do need them for very valid reasons. Inside of cities, yes you're not taking it off-road regularly, but you could well need one if you do lots of DIY projects, spend time out in the country regularly on weekends, or just don't want to be reliant on other people or renting a van every time you want to move something large or buy furniture. Smaller versions, because they really are too big for UK parking spaces, are catching on this side of the pond but primarily because of tax advantages rather than practicality reasons.
Mostly, I wish we’d stop subsidizing them - let every pay the same taxes, add a pollution tax, and charge for parking by the square foot. That’d bring back the smaller trucks which did the job for years, but since they’re a popular lifestyle accessory in certain circles there’s basically no chance of that.
Why in the hell is a 2022 Silverado 20 inches longer, 4 inches wider, and 5 inches taller? What purpose does that serve? Especially being wider of all dimensions? It has a 2L-smaller engine but somehow weighs 200 lbs. more?
Some people need trucks for sure but I think a lot more have them than need them.
The truck is cheaper than a suv and probably 10k more than a sedan
Compare to $41k average for mid-sized pickup trucks or $60k for full-sized and you could make a fair number of rentals. Since most of the ones I see are in showroom condition I am skeptical that the p75 owner would come anywhere close to that many over the life of the vehicle. The people I know who actually need them don’t need you to guess about this - one look at the truck is enough.
1. They are extremely inefficient (gas-wise). That means more pollution, more CO2 emissions, just overall a worse environment for everyone. 2. They are built with large front grills that limit visibility. Being high off the ground might feel nice, but it's dangerous for everyone else (pedestrians, cyclists, even other drivers). 3. They are super heavy, which results in much faster road degradation.
I think if we taxed heavy vehicles more fairly (IE, tax proportionate to the damage to roads, extra deaths from impractical and dangerous designs, and tailpipe emissions) then I think people would be less annoyed.
But as it stands, the modern pickup truck has extremely problematic externalities that everyone (including the pickup driver, though not directly) is paying for.
Compact pickup trucks (like the Ford Ranger) were way more common in the 90s (and 70s and 80s) than they seem to be today. I owned a yellow 1976 Datsun pickup truck in the early 90s.
Most of these trucks are just urban commuter vehicles. The owners wanted them because they think they're cool.
That said, I suspect even once a month puts you well above average for a non-commercial owner. You can observe all the empty truck beds in cities.
For a large fraction of the population, these services either do not exist or are unreliable. You need a truck for all of these.
I've noticed new parking space are smaller than before and it seems to go by age of development. There is a grocery store nearby with undergound parking built around 2005 with comfortable parking spaces. It roughly has 4 columns for every 2x4 block of spaces. Down the road there is another built in 2018 with tight but doable spaces and columns every 3 spaces. Across the street is a building finished in the last year or two where the spaces are small enough that every other is usable. That one has columns for every 2 spaces. I no longer park there because frequently people park in a way that effectively claims 2 spots.
Also, the beds were bigger back then, which was a waste of space.
What? The entire point of a pickup truck is bed space. If you don't need bed space, get any other kind of vehicle. Extended cab pickups are an abomination.
And yeah you didn't risk tearing your rotator cuff loading and unloading them. That's actually a feature.
It is very capable as a truck and also nice as a general road vehicle.
My Subaru Outback, with split-folding rear seats and a flat-folding front passenger seat, is great for lumber. Better than any pickup truck, except for payload capacity.
Let’s be honest. You don’t have a truck with an 8’ bed. If we go by midwestern dealership inventory, less than 5% of F150s have the 8’ bed. Of those, 70% are XL work trucks. 0 are above the XLT trim (does Ford even let you do that?).
The vast majority of trucks are SuperCabs with 5.5’ beds. That’s what all my siblings have. Because, you know, the dimensions are exactly what will fit in the standard suburban garage. As long as you don’t lift it.
I keep a bunch of nylon straps in the Subaru, the ones with the metal buckle at the end for cinching them down. With the the integrated roof rack built into the Outback, the straps, and two 2x4s that I would also buy at the hardware store, I can easily carry 4x8 plywood on the roof, securely. There are videos on YouTube of people demonstrating how to do this on Porsches. It’s easier on an Outback ;)
Again, a truck has a tremendously larger payload capacity!
I’ve used trucks a lot. I paid for a lot of my college tuition doing stuff with a truck that a Subaru can’t do! I’ll pick the outback any time I need to go buy lumber and will gladly need to lift things maybe 2” above my knees.
Never understood the desire to drive around a massive truck or SUV, especially in an city environment.
My wife's Tucson makes it with some space to spare to walk around it and have some cabinets, but I don't think going to a larger Telluride/Palisade type of SUV is going to be possible.
Ford once sold the F150 models locally - it is bloody HUGE compared to the Ranger sized pickups folks normally drove.
What's needed is a road use tax predicated on the size and weight of a car, and how congested the roadways it uses are. The latter point implies paying less tax if you use the car at times of the day when roads are not congested, or use routes that are less congested.
I don't remember things being so tight when I was growing up in the suburbs.